Friday, 16 April 2010

Annual Report on the Execution of Judgments

Wednesday, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe released the Annual Report on its supervision of the execution of the Court's judgments by the state parties in 2009. It was another year of increasingly intense and burdened supervision, but since the Interlaken conference of this year some venues for improvement seem at least to be possible. This is what the Council of Europe says on it in its press release:

In 2009 1515 new judgments finding violations of the European Convention on Human Rights were brought before the Committee of Ministers for supervision of their execution, thus bringing the number of cases under supervision to 7 881. The compensation awarded to the victims in the new judgments 2009 amounted to some 54 million Euros.

In their introductory remarks to the report, the successive Chairs of the Committee of Ministers’ special human rights meetings in 2009 stress the increasing burden faced by the Committee of Ministers, the responses under way as well as the reflections engaged, notably in the wake of the High Level Conference in Interlaken in February 2010 on the future of the European Court.

In the light of the challenges posed by the present situation and the entry into force of Protocol No. 14 to the Convention, the Director General of Human Rights and Legal Affairs, Philippe Boillat, notes the importance of continuing the efforts to optimise the supervision of execution on the basis of the action plans and reports submitted by governments and to reinforce cooperation programmes with States (notably through the Human Rights Trust Fund set up end 2007).

The Director also underlines the improvement of the effectiveness of domestic remedies and the efficient means to be developed at national level to accelerate the execution of the judgments of the European Court, in the light in particular of the Committee of Ministers’ Recommendation (2008)2 on the subject. He also underlines the importance of the increased interaction between the Court and the Committee of Ministers, as well as with other Council of Europe bodies.

The report contains detailed statistics highlighting the main tendencies of the evolution of the execution process in 2009 (including by state) and a thematic overview of the most important developments in the execution of the pending cases.

The report notes moreover the adoption of the new Recommendation (2010)3 on effective remedies for excessive length of proceedings, both by accelerating pending proceedings and by compensating victims for the prejudice suffered because of the delay in the administration of justice.